PARENTS are paying up to $25,000 for private primary schooling that offers no educational benefit, a study has found.

A national analysis of the NAPLAN results of nearly 3000 children found Catholic and independent students have the same educational levels as their state primary peers.

The research, presented at the Australian Institute of Family Studies conference yesterday, compared grade 3 and grade 5 NAPLAN results in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and literacy.

Researcher Ian Moran, from the University of Wollongong, initially found students from both Catholic and independent schools did better across all NAPLAN areas.

But once he controlled for student background, the difference between private and public student achievement disappeared. “We found no statistically significant difference between NAPLAN performance between school sectors,” he said.

In Victoria alone there are 51,000 primary school students in independent schools paying between $15,000 and $25,000 a year for tuition. There are also 110,000 children at Catholic schools paying an average of $600 a year.

Michelle Green, chief executive of Independent Schools Victoria, said the finding did not reflect the “life results of children attending independent schools”.